Montana's Fracking Boomlet Flatlines - Zero Rigs Since April, Output Declining

[hatrack]

Oil drilling in Montana has all but tapped out, according to state records showing that the state has been without a major drilling rig since April. Observers said the inactivity is due to low oil prices, which have also slowed drilling activity in North Dakota’s much more active Bakken formation, though crews are still drilling there.

Montana drilling has been very limited during the Bakken oil boom, but it’s been decades since the state was without a single drilling rig. State Board of Oil and Gas officials suspect that Montana might have been without a drilling rig in 2009, though Rep. Tom Richmond, R-Lockwood, said it’s been much longer since the state experienced a drilling drought. Richmond was Board of Oil and Gas director before retiring last year. “We might have got close in 2009, but I’m thinking it was probably some time in the 1990s when it was zero,” Richmond said.

EDIT

According to Baker Hughes Investor Relations, Montana oil drilling flatlined in mid-March. The same month a year earlier Montana had six oil rigs. In the past 12 months, state oil rig numbers were highest in October, at 14.

Oil prices began to falter in October 2014, sending drilling into a tailspin globally and in the Bakken. The rig count in North Dakota has slid from 189 in September 2014 to 76 this month. However oil production at current wells continues. Last December, Montana oil wells were producing 2.5 million barrels a month, Jones said. That production has continued into 2015, though numbers have slid because of the decline in new wells.

EDIT

http://billingsgazette.com/news/oil-drilling-in-montana-taps-out/article_50e8eaee-44ee-5b14-93a9-64ef037c74fa.html

[NV Whino]

1. Some good news at last

I suspect they'll find another way to fuck up the environment, though.